CHAPTER I
"Furth the sails. Ready for jump, mighty warriors. We journey back, we journey home, carrying the flame of the Star League back to the heart. We face the ignorant who believe themselves civilized and strong, but they will soon discover otherwise. We are the Clans, the Star League incarnate. None can stand against us and survive."
~ The Remembrance, Passage 272, Verse 8, Line 11 - 19
Tranquil, Kerensky Cluster,
May 6, 3048
"FEAR! Fear me, whelps! Fear me and use your stravag delicacy to conceive freebirths!"
The training officer, or drill instructor, or whatever his purpose was, stood fast in the middle of a grassy field in the temperate climate of Tranquil. Two more of his kind sandwiched him on his left and right. They were easily in their forties, evident from the wrinkles in their faces, but they were built far better than the bunch of sibko teenagers across the field. Standing taller than 6 feet, each of them had biceps as thick as the cadets' thighs, a sinister smile, and a spiteful stare, anxious to unleash their muscle power upon the teen bunch less than 50 meters in front of them.
Any reference to natural birth was an insult, and the officer's comment was no different. Clan culture severely looked down on natural birth. The superior beings, known as the Warrior Caste, were born out of Clan's eugenic program. They were sired by great warriors' DNA from the genetic pool and brought up in steel wombs. Their bodies were engineered to be stronger, faster, more agile, and more reflexive than freeborns, Clan's term for naturally-born humans. Along the way, they would also receive electronic implants to enhance their perception of the battle and to integrate with their battlemechs more.
These teenagers – seventeen years of age – were young trueborns who just started training to be Wolf Clan warriors. They were eager to prove their worthiness, that they were strong trueborns and not just some genetic inconsistencies like the freebirths. One cadet screamed his war chant and charged forward, straight into the face of the drill instructor. But he underestimated the dexterity of the older man. The instructor ducked low, slamming his shoulder into the cadet's abs as he got closer, then lifted the teenager into the air. With his arm he jerked the cadet's legs. The cadet came crashing down to the ground with a hideous boom. The instructor on the left picked him up and tossed him to the side like a log. The cadet tumbled like a wheel. Another one wanted tried similar thing, but the instructor on the right picked him up and sank his knee on the cadet's abs. The cadet reeled, retching, holding his stomach.
Cadet Abby of the Wolf didn't understand the purpose of this 'training', if such activity could be called training. It felt more like a manifestation of the trainer's frustration. In Wolf touman, only 5 percent of the warriors kept their places in Wolf Clan military ranks as they grew old. Those were the best of the best, and often they were the bloodnamed warriors of the Wolf Clan. The remaining 95 percent only served the Clan for several years before they were killed or replaced by younger, faster, stronger, and better warriors. The three training officers looked just like that, expired warriors who weren't even eligible for solahma unit, so they had to beat up sibkos to channel their frustration.
Hector, Abby's large sibkin on her right, launched himself at the trainer on the right while Darien, the one on her left, charged the trainer on the center. Hector screamed his lung out, turning his 240+ pound body into a battering ram. But before the hulk slammed into the trainer, he flinched and easily busted Hector's knee with his heel. Hector's war scream turned into a wail as he rolled on the ground into a ditch. Darien tried to put his boxing skill to work, but within seconds his face became a punching bag. He sloshed to the ground, wheezing and coughing, and the trainer lifted him up and shoved him back toward the rest of the group.
"Weaklings! Is this all you got? This is it? And you call yourself trueborns?" the trainer on the center spat another burst of insult. "If you can only succeed through dishonor, then so be it! No zellbrigen! Come on, whelps! Give it all you got!"
A couple of cadets tried ganging up on the trainer, but even then their attempt was futile. The trainer was too quick and too strong for them. A quick slap on the face staggered one cadet, and while he was composing himself, the trainer went on the other one, unleashing a flurry of head blows in blinding speed. The cadet's head snapped before crashing down, hard, and crying in agony. The trainer quickly launched a kick to the dazed cadet's midsection, so hard his body flew several inches off the ground.
"You!" the trainer on the center singled out on Abby. "Do you feel your fear, freebirth?"
Abby knew a frontal attack would be futile and could end up catastrophically. She could lose an arm, a leg, a will to survive, or even her life. But she could not ignore the trainer. Freebirth was the most obscene insult in Clan culture, and she just had to defend herself. No, she didn't feel fear. She was a trueborn, and no trueborn felt fear. She cried out, firing a series of roundhouse kicks like a windmill. Then a straight kick to the midsection. Then another sweeping kick to the trainer's head. Then a series of punches to the head.
The trainer blocked every single one of Abby's assault, then simply swept Abby's leg. Abby's body flew backward, and she landed on her back, legs flailing in the air. The trainer grabbed hold of her neck and pinned her to the ground. "You are done, weakling!" he spat. "We are the Wolf, the first and the foremost among the Clans. There is no place for weakling like you in the touman!" He got up, grabbed Abby's left wrist and right ankle, then flung the 17-year-old trueborn girl back toward where she came from. Abby hit the ground in a loud crash that shattered her mind. Her head throbbed so hard she lied on the ground for a while, trying to compose herself.
"Get up, Abby," Darien came and grabbed her shoulder, pushing her to a sitting position. His face was black and blue, and trails of blood adorned his nose. Darien and Hector were the closest sibkins to Abby, and while Hector and Abby were light skinned and robust like most of the cadets in the sibko, Darien was dark, feeble, and short. Even Abby was taller than Darien. This irregularity prompted her to make fun of him that perhaps Darien's gene was contaminated with genetic material from Clan 'Cwazy Woozle', her made-up moniker for the extinct Clan Mongoose. Nevertheless, Darien never took it to the heart, and the three became close friends.
"Where is Hector?" Darien asked as the trainers continued their insults and assault of the cadets.
"He is coming," Abby wheezed, pointing at Hector who was limping badly. "By the look of it, he may not survive this day."
"This is outrage!" Hector grimaced as he gathered with his sibkins. "This is not training!"
"Do you want to survive this day?" Darien said, half whispering. "We have to take out that stravag trainer on the center. Then maybe the council will see us worthy of real training instead of this absurdity. Hector, you do what you did. Abby, you too. I will prelude our combined attack…"
"That is a disgrace, Darien!" Abby snorted. "I will not lower myself to dezgra the first day of my training!"
"He said no zellbrigen, quiaff?" Darien replied. "Quiaff?"
"Aff, no zellbrigen," Hector responded enthusiastically. "Quiaff, Abby?"
"Aff," Abby was forced to agree with Darien's assessment. "No zellbrigen."
"Then let us finish this strong," Darien slapped Hector's and Abby's shoulders. "I will go first, you follow me two steps behind. Do not hold back; attack the trainer with everything you have. Ready? Now!"
The three of them charged the trainer on the center, the vilest one among the trainers. Darien ran straight at him, Abby followed him slightly on his left, Hector on the right. The trainer shot a derogatory smile at the cadet trio. He twisted left, using his left leg as an anchor while his right leg hung freely, ready to deliver the crushing blow at the charging cadets.
Just when Darien and the trainer was about to collide, Darien made a hard left turn. The trainer, already flinging his right leg to kick Darien, kicked void and lost balance. He ended up in an awkward, off-centered, out-of-balance position, facing Hector who was charging him like a bull. He switched legs to kick Hector with his left leg but he was too late. Hector slammed into his abs, taking him off the ground in a loud, unexpected collision.
As Hector locked himself with the trainer, Abby went airborne and unleashed a scissor kick, trapping the trainer's head between her shins. She twisted as hard as she could. Something snapped, and the trainer's body went limp. Hector brought him down, and the two rolled on the grass for quite a while. But long after Hector steadied himself on the grass, the trainer still rolled, and only stopped when his body hit a pile of dirt.
"Whelps! On the ground, now!" the other two trainers roared, forcing the cadets to lie on the ground. Abby lifted her head, watching one of the trainers shouting orders to keep the cadets on the ground, while the other rushed to check on the downed trainer. A beastly satisfaction blossomed in Abby's heart as the abusive trainer didn't show any signs of getting up. The other trainer checked on him, and just as she expected, he ended up screaming from the top of his lung…
"Medic! Medic!"
